Presenting Motherhood

November 11 - 13 I attended the National Women's Studies Association's annual conference. On a whim two other students from my graduate cohort and I put a panel together based on papers that we wrote in our Bodies and Technology course. We asked our professor to be our moderator since we knew she planned on attending. We were super excited that we got accepted but didn't really talk about it much.

Our department had a dress rehearsal for us that only served to make us more nervous, I think. Though I got a lot out of it and went to the conference feeling pretty confident. 

I really had a great time on this trip. It was the most saturated I had been in academia in a long time. I reveled in it. I felt more like myself than I had in a long time. 

The first session I went to was called Mothering and Hip Hop. omg, so good, even if it was an advertisement for a book that was coming out in a few months. I saw sessions on pedagogy, and activism, and mothering, and teaching trans, and online feminism/ activism. I participated in one highly interactive panel in which we broke into groups and mapped out bodies using beauty products. Then we mapped out the bodies we wanted to see. We added things like tattoos and voice and community and strength. I loved that it incorporated feminist pedagogy in the conference setting. So refreshing!

Since having a baby and going the whole "work-from-stay-at-home-mom" route I am not as immersed in school/ my academic life as I would like to be. My first semester of grad school I felt like I lived on campus. I had a shared office with 6 other people. We laughed, and fought, and cried. We had dinner parties, and I made two of my best friends in the world. Those 2 girls and I would stand outside and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and bond over the fact that we were in committed relationships and in school and not looking for friends (so funny). During the period where we wrote final papers for our seminars and graded undergraduate papers the 4 of us women in the program were cemented together for life. We spent long days in the library together buying one another coffee and snacks. Bringing fruits and veggies to share with one another. Supporting each other and snapping  one another back to reality when necessary. I spent all night with one of them and we bonded through our usual food, coffee, and cigarettes and wrote together all night long; we only slept 2 hours. Then got up and went to meet the others at the library.

When I transferred to my new department I spent a lot of time with my new cohort as well. We socialized a lot and talked and joked about feminist theory and pedagogy. I was pretty pregnant by this time and it was great to still have the freedom to go out and do whatever. But by the end of my first semester with them I was finishing final papers early and preparing to have a baby. I could not pull any all nighters. Everything had changed. I was removed from my submersion in intellectualism and thought and pondering. 

Going to this conference brought me back to my first semester. I even got to see one of the best friends I made my first semester. I got to bond with two of the women from my cohort now and we had some pretty interesting experiences. In three words, "Suck my C.V.". 

The chair of my internship committee introduced me to one of my favorite scholars. She writes about and has collected wonderful anthologies about motherhood. I got to chat it up with her (hopefully impress her) and get a few of  her books for super cheap!

We had a really awesome dinner with 2 of our profs. I don't think I'll ever forget it!

We stayed up late at night and cracked up over Paula Deen Riding Things and Feminist Hulk and our anxiety over our presentation. We realized once we got there that we were somewhat over our heads and that it was kind of a big deal that we were presenting at this national conference. We were 3 of about 5 Master's students who were presenting. Holy Shit!

I had a really good time and the experience was cathartic and liberating and somewhat guilt inducing. I was nervous before we left because it was the longest I was going to be away from Cameron since he was born. As we walked to the restaurant to go to dinner with our profs my chair asked me, "So, do you miss Cameron?" I said that I didn't miss him as much as I thought I would. She looked at me and said, "And that's OK". I hadn't realized that I didn't miss him as much as I expected until I was answering her question so I was smashed with guilt and her reply was exactly what I needed to hear.

Once I got home and thought about all this a lot more I realized that it really was okay. One of the things I promised myself, that BJ and I promised ourselves, was that we wouldn't lose our identity in the process of becoming parents. We were naive to think that was possible. It wasn't as though I lost who I am on the inside, the essence of what makes me Cheryl, but we've both lost the activities that made up so much of our identities. So, it really was okay that I went away to a conference and "rediscovered myself". It really was okay that part of me didn't quite want to leave yet when we had to. It really was okay that I didn't miss my son to the degree that I thought I would.

I'm so glad I reconnected with my nerdy intellectual self. I have felt re-energized and ready to tackle my last couple of weeks of school before I graduate. And I learned a lot about being the kind of mother who allows herself to do the activities that define her once in a while without succumbing to guilt. 

Regrets?

Probably the most brilliant mom I know in grad school posted this on fb today: "Dear Son: I'm sorry that my choice of "careers" consumed your mother. Dear Academe: I'm sorry that my responsibilities as a mother interfered with your plans for me. Dear Self: I don't really remember you at all."

GOOD.NESS. That hits close to home. Seriously, one day I'm ready to cry because I don't have the time to be the mom I want to be, the next I'm ready to cry because I will never realize my full potential as an academic because I chose to become a mom. And others I'm ready to cry because I seriously don't remember who I am or how I got here.

This is not to say that I don't love my life. I FUCKING LOVE MY LIFE. But sometimes I'm frustrated that I can't have it all. I'm close. So close.

I remember my first year of grad school a prof I idolized was talking about what a disappointment she was to her mother because all she had given her was book manuscripts and not grandchildren. This prof is a name in her field and admired by many. I always shook my head because I thought she could have had children and still made it to where she is today.

I was so wrong. If you want to be a serious name in your field and you have a vagina, you can't have kids.

If you want kids and have a vagina you might as well give up your hopes of becoming a serious name in your field.

One time when I was privately meeting with that prof she told me she looked up how many times she was cited in databases so she could feel important. She felt unfulfilled and defeated. Even with her "name". I don't know if having kids would have made her fulfilled.

But I'm thanking my lucky stars that on days that I feel defeated I will have Cameron looking at me with his mischievous little grin and his eyes filled with love.

And I won't have to go looking up how many people deemed my words intelligent enough to repeat in order to feel important.